Bhopal pay-out
Millions of dollars in compensation could at last be on its way to the 100,000 surviving victims of the Bhopal chemical disaster, which killed almost 4000 people in 1984. On Tuesday, India鈥檚 Supreme Court ordered the government to give victims the $325.5 million outstanding from a fund of $470 million. The fund was set up in 1989 by Union Carbide, the US company that ran the plant which released a toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate gas.
Porn clampdown
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Five hundred websites with pornographic content have been threatened with closure by the Chinese government unless they remove the images by September. Pornography has 鈥渉armed the physical and psychological health of young people鈥�, according to the government Xinhua news agency.
Vultures face extinction
Griffon vultures across India and in Nepal are dying from eating cattle treated with the painkiller diclofenac, which damages the birds鈥� kidneys. A report released on Wednesday confirms similar observations in Pakistan earlier this year. All three species of griffon vulture face extinction unless diclofenac is banned for veterinary use, the report says.
Space weather warning
Two clusters of sunspots have rotated into view, blackening the face of the sun. The Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado, says their pent-up energy could send massive flares earthwards.
Dissident doctor released
Jiang Yanyong is free. The 72-year-old doctor was imprisoned on 1 June after calling on the government to admit its massacre of students in Tiananmen Square in 1989 was a mistake. Last year he exposed a cover-up of the SARS epidemic in Beijing (New 杏吧原创, 10 July, p 3). Jiang is now at home in Beijing but is not allowed to talk to reporters.